


the whole, consecutive string

by inkedinserendipity



Series: Remember Me in the Intervals [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, an explanation + liner notes + bonus content of rmiti, before the last few parts go up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: A "Previously On" of Remember Me in the Intervals. Like one of those cartoon episodes right before the finale where they summarize the whole series for you. (One day, I aspire to be as good as The Ember Island Players.)Check it out for a synthesis of liner notes, bonus content, extra scenes, explanations, all jammed into one (1) chronological summary of RMITI.





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**Author's Note:**

> Recommended reading: right before Chapter 9 of RMITI. Contains a lot of the information that will be expanded upon in the final chapter + epilogue.

**1\. Nott**

Goblins kidnap the Brenattos. Veth takes care of her child and her husband, all the while planning an escape. Not an escape that involves her own safety, mind. Whatever gets her husband and son out alive is great by her. She keeps that plan close until Caleb Widogast is dumped in her cell.

Caleb shows her his familiar and his magic. Reassures her that she is brave, and that she should not call herself _not _(not pretty, not brave, not smart), because it isn’t true. Frumpkin gets Veth a lockpick; Veth gets them out. The town of Felderwin knows her, now, as _Veth the Brave_. 

While they’re escaping, Caleb holds back for a moment. He tells Veth he has someone he needs to see. A business meeting, perhaps. It would convince probably anyone _except_ Veth, who knows that Caleb is weak, even if she’s not quite sure how she knows. He promises her he will come home, and leaves to kill the witch that, in another life, drowned her in a river and turned her into a goblin.

Veth convinces Caleb to stay with them, for a while. He and the Brenattos bond. He buys two pearls in the marketplace, and provides Luc with a magic book that allows him to <strike>pester Uncle Caleb for magic help</strike> ask questions of a magic-user when he gets stuck on a learning a spell in his new spellbook, which Caleb also gives him. Caleb hooks fire-resistant charms in the basement of the Brenatto’s home, so that it will not burn if the Krynn attack Felderwin again. 

Several times during these few weeks, Caleb tries to leave, and Veth convinces him to stay each time. It’s not hard; he doesn’t want to go.

But in the end, he has to leave. He tells Luc to be good to her mother, thanks Yeza, and says farewell to Veth in a gold-tipped field of wheat.

He expects Veth will forget him. She doesn’t.

**2\. Yasha**

So he’s a little late to Xhorhas. In his defense, he did try to leave Felderwin on time. The only problem was that Veth is very persuasive.

Caleb’s never met Zuala before, but he knows of her through Yasha. He finds her tribe in the Iothian Moorlands, praying that he’s not too late, and doesn’t really think through how he’s going to introduce himself to a Yasha that doesn’t know him (used as he is to his friends accepting him, as Veth did, without question). Whoops.

Yasha starts to flee her tribe, knowing that if she stays, she’ll die (as she did in canon); then she literally runs into Caleb, who pops a shield around them and snatches Zuala back from the leader of Yasha’s tribe, with the help of Frumpkin and a quick Polymorph. More conversation happens between the chief and Caleb; Yasha misses most of it. She has Zuala back. She's relieved and guilty and upset and joyous, all at once. Only hours ago, the two of them were married.

Caleb offers to destroy her tribe. Yasha, with Zuala in her arms, decides she doesn’t want to see them die. She just doesn’t want to see them, ever again.

Yasha and Zuala reunite. Yasha apologizes, over and over. She does not think about the worst-case scenario, where Zuala died without Yasha near. 

hey decide they want to live in the Empire, somewhere with flowers. They sleep under the Hut, and in the morning Caleb asks to borrow a necklace from Yasha, which he uses to communicate with the Stormlord. Caleb uses the necklace as an anchor and the help he has provided Yasha in the past to convince the Stormlord to ask a favor of the Wildmother (which he knew was possible when the Traveler fetched the Wildmother the first time Caduceus died, in the previous timeline). From this interaction, he gets a cure for the beginnings of the disease that has taken hold in the Blooming Grove.

Yasha and Zuala bond with Frumpkin; decide they want a cat for themselves; decide to check out the circus Caleb mentions passing through the south of Wildemount; and, finally, they teleport into the Empire.

**2.5. Intermission: Whitestone**

Caleb means to enchant the pearls he bought from Felderwin with one Greater Restoration apiece. These spells will, ideally, undo the Modify Memories placed on Astrid and Eodwulf. However, the cleric he has in mind for the spell isn’t quite at that proficiency just yet. (In fact, at this point, his cleric is at level 1.) So he augments the power of the pearls with refined residuum.

He travels to Whitestone, the source of residuum trade across the continents. There, he meets a Lord and Lady de Rolo. He asks to be able to purchase their residuum at the source, and absorb it into the pearls here. It costs a hefty sum of money, but the Lord and Lady agree.

He reminds them of someone they loved, long ago.

**3\. Caduceus**

Caleb doesn’t plan to tell Caduceus anything about the previous timeline. He really doesn’t. He also really should have known better.

Caleb meets Caduceus and his siblings. Over tea, Caduceus asks what Caleb is doing in the Grove. Caleb attempts to lie. Caduceus sees through it with laughable speed. He pries the true story out of Caleb and, against all better sense, believes him.

After sharing his story, Caleb offers to tell him more about his Caduceus’s future, a future in which Caduceus returns to the Grove when most of his Nein is gone, a future in which the Grove is blighted and his siblings either dead or missing. Caduceus declines. That is not his path. Not his future. He doesn’t want to know.

Caleb presents Caduceus with the vial, to cure the blight growing steadily in the Grove, and asks three favors in return. First, to commune with the Wildmother, to enchant both of the enhanced pearls with Greater Restoration, a spell that is typically above his ability, but castable with the aid of a god. Second, to find a falcon that is patient, loyal, and that would be willing to go on an adventure. Caduceus, who knows the wildlife of the area, knows a candidate already. He agrees. 

Third, he asks that Caduceus check on Veth, to make sure that she and her family are well. Not too often, and not overtly, but just...to be sure that their home has not burned. That Yeza is not prisoner, that Luc is healthy, and that Veth herself is happy. 

Fourth, he asks that Caduceus not share his story. It is better to let lie a timeline that is long-dead.

**4\. Fjord**

It’s easy to make his Mansion look like a bookstore. It’s relaxing. Caleb fills the sections with books whose fragments he remembers, some that he invents himself, and dedicates himself to memorizing - truly memorizing - all the books he can find on the gods of the ocean, the ways that religious men can manifest their devotions to their gods, all about clerics and warlocks and paladins and their oaths. 

He plants in Deastok rumors that he is a powerful wizard, happy to teach, so that when Fjord travels through Deastok he hears the rumors and tracks Caleb down. Caleb is more than happy to help (and to indulge in an old, beloved pastime: scaring the shit out of Fjord whenever he can).

Caleb steers Fjord away from Uk’otoa. Fjord, for hours, researches his options, in terms of class and god. He picks Valkur, Captain of the Waves, and chooses to become a paladin, to eventually take the Oath of Redemption.

While researching, the two briefly discuss the Calamity, and the wars of the gods. Caleb tells him what he can, knowing that it will become relevant, because in his timeline, the Mighty Nein went up against a number of gods. That was how they fell. His surprise that Fjord does not recognize the Calamity is genuine; he is so accustomed to the Nein being fully-versed in arcane history, as they were during the end of their years together, that he’s forgotten that this Fjord would not know anything about the wars of the gods.

While waiting for Caleb to reappear during his great note-taking marathon, Fjrod wanders through the Mansion. He finds, entirely by accident, the book through which Luc and Caleb are communicating, as well as the two pearls already enchanted, meant for Astrid and Eodwulf. Frumpkin scares him away from touching them and discharging the spell. 

Caleb advises him on how to seek out a god. Fjord follows his advice, and picks a new location where he believes he could find a temple of Valkur: the lake near Trostenwald. So he goes.

**4.5. Intermission: Uk’otoa**

_(or: Visiting Wizard Shouts at God)_

Before Caleb leaves Deastok for good, Uk’otoa catches him unawares on the shore. Uk’otoa is, understandably, angry that Caleb took his warlock. Caleb is, also understandably, angry that in another timeline, Uk’otoa took Fjord’s life. 

They fight. No one _wins_, but Caleb does not die, and for a mortal man against a god, that is impressive in itself. Uk’otoa leaves on him scars that will not heal. Caleb leaves on him the promise that Uk’otoa will never seek out Fjord for revenge.

**5\. Beau**

Caleb has been feeding the Soul information about Ikithon, in the hopes that, once his mission is complete, the Soul will take down the Assembly, and grow something new in its place. Knowing what he does, he purposefully intercepts Beau during one of the Soul’s information-gathering missions, and tells her more of what she needs to know to assemble a case against Ikithon.

Beau doesn’t hate him. Doesn’t hate the way he dances, either, which is a new one. Beau notices scars on his collarbone, which Caleb suffered during his fight with Uk’otoa, that will never quite heal. They talk, both of them lying, and Caleb spins a cover story, under which he hints that Ikithon is grooming children (true), pulling them from the path of the light and scarring them (true), and that Caleb is terrified of him (partially true). Under the premise of this last half-truth, Caleb flees the ballroom, and an exasperated Beau follows him.

Away from prying eyes, Caleb shares a little more about Ikithon, then presents to her the falcon that Caduceus selected. Caduceus warned the falcon, not yet named, that his partner might be brash at first, but would prove, in the end, to be loyal in return. This falcon, which Beau will name Thaddeus, becomes part of Beau’s information-gathering methods, and he does not leave her. They are loyal to a fault, both of them, to each other.

On the balcony, Beau’s airheaded persona drops. She talks as she normally would, calls him out for his stupidity, and generally acts more like herself. She also does not notice that, while she introduced herself as Beau, he calls her by her full name. It doesn’t seem strange to her. None of it does, until afterward.

Caleb leaves. 

Beau shares what she found with Dairon, and every word confirms Dairon’s suspicion: there is a traitor within the Assembly. Dairon means to take him down. Beau, clever and quick and oddly invested in his demise, helps.

**5.5. Intermission: The Halls**

Beau knows that such an integral part of the Assembly cannot be taken down without series help. She continues to investigate Ikithon, feeding information back to Dairon. Then she takes a gamble: she reaches out to Oremid Hass, Headmaster of the Halls of Erudition.

She tells Hass what she knows, knowing well that he and Ikithon are allies. She has seen them interact before, at various festivities, and knows that they are not _friends_, though they work together. She banks on Hass’s internal sense of justice, and that his distaste of the man might match hers. She leaves, not sure of which side Hass will take.

Dairon finds out, and chews Beau out for her choices. Indignant, Beau leaves the Soul. She travels southward, reaching, eventually, Trostenwald.

Months into meeting the rest of her to-be-family, she will receive a message from Hass. He will tell her that she was correct, and that Ikithon must be ousted. He will tell her that two of Ikithon’s students have spoken against him. He will tell her that he needs her help - that the Soul needs her help.

Their group of seven will travel to Rexxentrum, and there, the Assembly will be destroyed.

**6\. Jester**

Caleb’s plan for his favorite blue tiefling has two parts: first, get rid of Lord Sharp, and second, pass on the news. He meets Lord Sharp, who’s a nasty old man with his nose stuck in the air, and Charms him into leaving Nicodranas for Alfield, and never returning. 

Then he goes to the Lavish Chateau, eager to share the news. Marion catches him off-guard, as she always has. He asks to speak with Jester, and tells them both that Sharp is gone. Frumpkin, as a dog, captures Jester’s attention and affection for a good number of moments before she and her mother (and, later, Blude), verify that, across the street, Sharp is indeed leaving.

Caleb asks to speak to Jester alone. Jester pets Frumpkin, because he is a beautiful and big dog. She decides that she wants a dog, too.

Caleb asks her if she’d like to travel. Without Sharp, Jester has no incentive to leave the Chateau, but Caleb tells her of a group of friends that she could make in Trostenwald. Tells her of a spell that would let her talk to her mother, anywhere in the world. Carefully does not pressure her, but presents to her the possibility of meeting new people, of travelling, as he knows she wanted to do when she was younger, and lets the idea blossom. 

He leaves with their gratitude. He asks Yussah to kill Sharp if he ever attempts to return to Nicodranas. Several months later, Jester leaves the city, en route for Trostenwald.

**7\. Molly**

There’s not much Molly really _needs_. He’d only existed for a couple of years before the Nein met up, after all. But Caleb wants to see him again, so he does. He catches Molly’s eye in an inn, and sets up a trade: a list of the names of the folks who work in the Carnival (to ensure that Yasha and Zuala joined safely), and a reading, for a story of Caleb’s. Caleb finds out that Yasha and Zuala are part of the circus, as bouncers, and Molly loves them both.

So in return, Caleb tells a story. He talks of his Beau and his Yasha, how they grew close, in his timeline. He talks of Molly’s death, the first time around. He talks of them bringing Molly back, eventually, and of himself and Molly growing close; falling in love, even. 

He talks of them dying, or leaving, one-by-one.

Molly performs a reading: he draws, for his past, the Hanged Man, a card of sacrifice. For his present, Justice, that Caleb distributes it in this very moment. Then he draws, for the future, the Tower. And Molly is not quite sure why, but he lies; makes up a new meaning for the card. He doesn’t want to be the one to tell this man that his demise is coming soon. 

Caleb knows he's lying, but doesn't call him on it. 

Before he leaves, he gives Molly a silver trinket: an earring, fitted for human ears, that can be fashioned into a tiefling’s horn-cuff. Molly doesn’t want to take it, because it looks expensive (and it is); but Caleb insists, so he does. 

**Interlude 7.5: The Trinket**

In the first timeline, after Molly is resurrected, he and Caleb grow close. One day Molly gives him a silver earring, a shining symbol of the Moonweaver. Caleb never takes it off. 

One day, much later, Molly dies.

And Caleb swears that, when he finds Molly again, in the new timeline that he means to create, Molly will wear it instead. He transmutes it into the form of a horn-cuff, still dangling with a mooncharm, and turns back time. In that tavern, Caleb fulfils his promise. 

The new Molly, even though he doesn’t quite understand why, never takes it off. 

**8\. Caleb**

Caleb returns to Rexxentrum. He finds Astrid’s quarters, and Eodwulf’s, and leaves for them both one of the enchanted pearls, which will restore their memories upon contact. He doesn’t wait for his former friends to find their pearls before approaching Ikithon, because he doesn’t know what he will do if they decide to kill him anyway. For fear of discovering that they still hate him, he would rather not find out at all. 

He confronts Ikithon, Frumpkin in the form of a phoenix on his shoulder. Ikithon tries to get him to reconsider, to teach him dunamancy, offers him his parents back, perhaps, but Caleb is unswayed. Ikithon tells him that sentiment is weakness, and that it will get him killed. Caleb tells him that he knows. 

Their confrontation begins. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, catch me on tumblr!


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